Sahabandu could have found place in any county side in England - Tom Graveney

By Leslie FERNANDO

CRICKET: It's a unique record for a bowler to have captured over one thousand wickets (1,048 wickets) in division one club cricket and in international matches.

The cricketer to achieve this feat is none other than Daya Shahbandu, left-arm dual purpose bowler. Popularly known as `Sahab' who turns 69 on March 28, was a former Sri Lanka, Royal, Colombo Municipality, Nomads and Maharaja organisation cricketer.

Daya Sahabandu was one of Sri Lanka's illustrious left-arm bowlers who bagged 41 wickets for Nomads first/season in the 1963-1964 Sara Trophy Tournament. He played 12 seasons for Nomads SC and turned in a phenomenal performance when he grabbed 575 scalps - first bowler to achieve this rare feat. He had 66 wickets in 1974-1975 season.

Mild mannered `Sahab', a product of Royal is one cricketer, who `eats, drinks and sleeps cricket' to put it colloquially.

His sheer devotion and dedication to the game is hard to match. His faultless length and well directed bowling had many outstanding batsmen in difficulty.

The batsmen, despite their tight defence and concentration finally fell prey to the wiles of `Sahab'.

Tom Graveney - former England cricketer, one of the best batsmen in the world in the 1960s paid a rich compliment to Sahabandu after 1969 `unofficial Test' - England vs Sri Lanka. "Your left-arm bowler Sahabandu is easily the best I have faced in my 20 years of big cricket.

He should be able to find a place in any county side in England. No bowler could have bowled so well as he did on the plumb, placid wicket said Graveney - the century maker against Sri Lanka in 1969. It was the best compliment that was paid to a Sri Lankan bowler.

Daya Sahabandu became the first Sri Lankan and only the third in Asia in cricket history to surpass the four figure mark (1,000) wickets. The other two are. India's Bishen Singh Bedi and Pakistan's Inthikab Alam, both of whom had the advantage of playing in English County Championships.

Sahabandu's record in cricket is first class. He played 19 1/2 seasons and played 253 matches. He bowled 6,552.1 overs, 1,919 maidens gave away 14,787 runs, took 1,048 wickets for an average of 14.11.

His cricketing career started at Royal Primary around 1948 to 1960 After the 1960 Royal-Thomian match, he had a long stint with the Colombo Municipality as a Playground Instructor 1963 to 1977.

In 1977, Sahabandu joined Maharaja Organisation. He played for Colombo Municipality who emerged Government Services Cricket Champions with distinction under the captaincy of D.H. De Silva. He also started club cricket career in 1963 turning out for Nomads SC also under `DH'.

Nomads dominated the club scene mainly due to `Sahab' from 1963 to 1975. True, Nomads had some fine batsmen, but the `key' man of the side `Sahab' with his uncanny spin and variation, won the matches.

I had the good fortune to have had close contact with the great bowler since 1963 and he told me that it was skipper `DH' who really made him a fine bowler. I would never have got those wickets if not for DH's good handling and field placing. Then there was Sri Lanka and Leicestershire Professional Stanley Jayasinghe who returned to settle down in Sri Lanka in 1967 helped T.B. Kehelgamuwa and me to reach the top.

In 1969, Sahabandu played his first unofficial Test against England led by Colin Cowdrey.

He came in for a lot of praise from many famous world cricketers for his meticulous bowling and many of them classed him as another Derek Underwood.

Sahabandu, despite being a bowler at tunes came off with the bat too. For him the most memorable incident was in 1975 when playing for Sri Lanka against India in the unofficial Test match in Hyderabad.

Believe it or not, Sahabandu batted for four and half hours and made an unbeaten 32. In the second innings, Sri Lanka were five wickets down for 195. On the fourth day, Sahabandu batted throughout till after ten. Sri Lanka were all out. Sahabandu and Tony Opatha (64) were associated in 75-run stand for the seventh wicket. He faced the best spinners at that time in world cricket - Chandrasekhar, Prasanna. He also faced Madan Lal and Mohinder Amaranath. Sahabandu represented Sri Lanka from 1969 to 1975.

Sahabandu left Colombo Municipality and joined Maharaja Organisation. After his playing career was over, Sahab took up to cricket coaching. He coached Royal and St. Joseph's College mainly the second string teams in from 1996 to 2000.